Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,120

so excited to get started—I had paper and paints and plans to go all Bob Ross on you. Teach you brushstrokes and whatnot. You wanted to paint the cottage, but you insisted on drawing it out first. I think you went through half a sketchpad.”

“What can I say? I was a perfectionist.”

“No, you were scared. I figured it out quickly enough. I’d told you how unforgiving watercolors can be, and I think you worked yourself into a lather of worry about splotches and accidentally mixed colors.”

Jenessa traced a streak of paint on the tabletop. “You’re saying I’m scared of what will happen with Lucas if I push him or crowd his space?”

“I’m saying there comes a point when you have to just paint your picture.” Aunt Lauren leaned forward. “You’ve already seen the image in your head, dear niece of mine.”

She had. She’d seen it in vivid, bold color. The most beautiful of dreams.

A dream she wouldn’t have even known to imagine for herself months ago. Before the kids showed up at the cottage. Before Lucas trekked his way into her heart. Before the house she’d planned to leave had bidden her to stay.

What could any of that be, it struck her in this moment, but the handiwork of a God who loved her? Who saw her heart even more clearly than Lucas did. Who’d known what she needed when she’d been restless and uncertain.

Who knew what she longed for even now.

She’d been working on trusting Him with each day. Could she start trusting Him with her tomorrows, too? Enough to take a scary step forward?

“Take it from someone who waited far too long, Jen,” her aunt said. “When you know what you want, it’s worth mustering up the bravery to go after it.”

“That sounds lovely, but Lucas has it in his head that he’s an obstacle to my situation with the kids.” For all she knew, she could follow Lucas all the way to D.C. only to have him tell her to go home.

Aunt Lauren propped her elbow on the table. “Yes, well, I’ve had some things in my head for years. Faulty things that kept me from you. Lucas is the one who doused me with common sense.” She grinned and shrugged. “I say you give him a taste of his own medicine.”

One week back in D.C. had stretched into two.

Lucas fingered the collar of his oxford, wishing for the freedom to loosen his tie. It was one thing to get decked out in a constricting suit for Jenessa’s sake—for a wedding or a backyard gala. But an appointment in a lackluster office building with beige walls, plastic plants, and elevator music hardly seemed worth the effort.

And yet, as Dad and Flagg and his own common sense kept trying to drive home, it was important to make a good impression on the JAG officer who’d agreed to represent him at the review board hearing.

He glanced across the waiting area to where Dad sat with an open magazine on his lap. He hadn’t turned a page in ten minutes.

Nor had they shared more than polite small talk. Not today. Not in any of the days since he’d returned. But I’m here, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough? The only sound other than his own constant shifting in his chair had been the ding of Dad’s phone a few minutes ago. A text message he’d barely glanced at.

Lucas fidgeted with his tie again. Why he’d felt the need to show up thirty minutes early was beyond him. Probably because he’d known Dad would—some infernal Army promptness. Strange how there were some memories even decades of distance from the man couldn’t erase.

“I read Flagg’s reference letter.”

He blinked, his gaze jutting upward at the surprise of Dad’s voice. “Oh, uh, okay. I haven’t read it.” Nor had he read any of the letters from his teammates that would go to the review board alongside Flagg’s recommendation and his own written testimonial.

Which he had yet to write. He’d told himself he might as well wait until after this appointment, during which they’d discuss the verbal statement he’d make when he appeared in front of the board in December.

But mostly, the thought of sitting at the empty desk in his empty D.C. apartment, working on a testimony about his past when his present felt so burdened and his future hazier than ever before, just felt futile.

And how was he supposed to focus on the task anyway when his thoughts were so crowded with all he’d